ARE vampires half-dead or half-alive? It was a question raised by Elton John’s new musical “Lestat,” which last night arrived – either half-dead or, perhaps, half-alive – at the Palace Theatre.

The track record of vampire musicals is generally horrifying. But backers still seem willing to, as it were, stake them.

“Lestat,” based on the well-known Anne Rice novels, has a book by Linda Woolverton, of “Beauty and the Beast” repute, and lyrics by Bernie Taupin, who has collaborated with Sir Elton on some of his biggest pop hits.

But “Lestat” is not likely to top many charts: It is a musical only the chief accountant of a blood bank could love.

First up, what is it all about? Honestly, I’m not quite sure. And it would be a cliché to adapt that glib quip and say about two hours and 25 minutes.

But let’s try. Now, there is this French guy, Lestat, who becomes a vampire after slaughtering a pack of wolves in the woods – don’t ask – then goes to Paris, does something rather nasty to his own mother, Gabrielle, who thus also gets to be a vam-

pire. Blood ties, as it were.

Did I tell you the time was – at least I think it was – somewhere in the 18th century? Or perhaps earlier. Vampires, I am told, have very little sense of time. To them, one century is pretty much as good as another.

Having initiated, as it were, Mom – who turns out to be something of a blood sport herself – Lestat initiates other people.

What is very clear by the end – it probably took a few centuries, and certainly feels like it – is that vampires have very difficult and unhappy lives. You really don’t want to be one.

Especially if it involved music as loud and boring as poor old Lestat has to plow his way through. It’s not a life fit for a dog, let alone a bat.

The simple rhymes of Taupin’s lyrics and the discursive book by Woolverton are both well down to the standard of Sir Elton’s dirge.

Common honesty, as well as sweet charity, demands both praise and sympathy for the cast. Hugh Panaro is especially gallant as the bloodsucking eponymous hero, lifting his voice above the bluster and seemingly making swashbuckling light of the text.

Carolee Carmello suggests a sprightly mother, Drew Sarich is fine as a senior vampire of a different blood-group from the hero, and Jim Stanek, Roderick Hill, Michael Genet and Allison Fischer – playing the nastiest little girl in need of a transfusion currently on Broadway – do their best to keep afloat a ship resolutely searching for icebergs.